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Friday, 12 April 2013

NEW YAMAHA R&D CENTRE OPENED

Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd. has now established Yamaha Motor
Research and Development India Pvt. Ltd. (YMRI) in Surajpur, State of Uttar
Pradesh. Few say that it is to become the motorcycle R&D headquarters in
India. This initiative is intended to increase Yamaha’s manufacturing
competitiveness in the country. The function of the India Procurement Centre
established last year has been transferred and incorporated into the new
company, and will now operate as the India Integrated Development Centre.

YMRI was established in February this year to function as
the core of the second Integrated Development Centre, following the
establishment of the ASEAN Integrated Development Centre in Thailand last year.
The YMRI will be the fifth overseas R&D headquarters for Yamaha Motor Group
following Italy, Taiwan, China, and Thailand. The new Integrated
Development Centre aims to contribute to India's operations by "change
drawings", tailoring reforms to design, maintenance, and production
standards, optimizing them to fit the Indian market and provide low-cost models
to customers.

Speaking on the
occasion Mr. Hiroyuki Suzuki, CEO & Managing Director, India Yamaha Motor
Pvt. Ltd. said, “We at Yamaha strongly believe in constant innovation. The
R&D centre will help us to put channelized effort in conceptualization of
new models and parts keeping in mind the changing customer preferences. This
will help us not only to develop models and parts for India market but also to
develop models and parts for export markets as well”.

Explaining the development further, Mr. Toshikazu Kobayashi, Managing
Director, Yamaha Motor Research and Development India Pvt. Ltd. said, “We plan
to achieve lowest cost models and parts in the world through INDRA (Innovative
and New Development based on Responsible Analysis) activity meant to provide
optimized specification thorough investigation in product life cycle. This
activity will significantly help us in reducing the cost yet rolling out
products that meet all customer aspirations and market standards.” Future plans
include the setup of the new Chennai site to develop models intended for the
Indian market and Global market, based on model platforms developed in Japan.

The motorcycle market in India has been growing constantly in recent years
owing to political and economic stability and financial growth - the market
scale reached around 14 million units in 2012 overtaking China to become the
world's largest motorcycle market. The market is expected to grow further,
reaching 16 million units in 2015. In this environment, Yamaha has been
aggressively launching models in the premium and deluxe bikes segment and
breaking into the rapidly growing scooter category, achieving domestic sales of
350,000 units in 2012. Based on the new medium-term plan commencing this year,
Yamaha will continue to launch products in the scooters category while
expanding the sales network, and constructing and launching the second factory
in Chennai by 2014. Sales of 500,000 units in 2013, and 1 million units in 2015
are expected.